BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

He’s being followed by a moon shadow…

28 comments on He’s being followed by a moon shadow…

He’s being followed by a moon shadow…

: Cat Stevens’ (new) name, Yusuf Islam, is on no-fly security lists, so when he was allowed to board a plane and it was discovered, the jet was diverted to Maine.

“He was interviewed and denied admission to the United States on national security grounds,” said homeland security spokesman Dennis Murphy. He said the man would be put on the first available flight out of the country today.

: OK, let’s start in…. Maybe they feared he’d say, I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun or just that he’s on the wrong side of this Wild World. He’s just Cat Stevens, but now he looks like a Foreigner. At any rate, it was A Bad Night last night and you could pretty much say that Tuesday’s Dead and When Morning Has Broken he finds himself in the land of L.L. Bean. And you know where this is headed. Yup, next time, Cat/Yusuf, better take the Peace Train.

28 responses to “He’s being followed by a moon shadow…”

  1. Ruth Avatar
    Ruth

    Doesn’t the Deparment of Homeland Security make you feel secure? From today’s Washington Post:
    To an immigrant, Arnold Schwarzenegger told delegates at the Republican convention last month, there is no country “more welcoming than the United States of America.” And most of the time, that’s true.
    But it wasn’t true last week in Miami Beach, where the Department of Homeland Security attempted to ban a nonpartisan voter registration operation from setting up tables on the sidewalk outside a massive naturalization ceremony at that city’s convention center. The DHS complained that Mi Familia Vota would be blocking the doors at the swearing-in. But last Thursday, U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan ruled that the right to register voters was protected by the First Amendment, though he did stipulate how much space the group’s tables could take up.

  2. HE Avatar
    HE

    He openly donated money to Hamas. I wd say he sh be unwelcome in the US.

  3. Jack Tanner Avatar
    Jack Tanner

    I’d like to creat a whole list of foreign musicians that aren’t welcome in the US. Start with the guys who sing the falsetto quasi Queen remakes and then add the depression inducing Morrissey and many, many others.

  4. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    He also agreed that the death sentence against Salman Rushdie was a good idea a few years ago. He is pretty radical. However, a terrorist threat? I am not sure about that.
    I want to know why it took so long to ID him…

  5. Ron Avatar
    Ron

    Personally, I think Homeland Security must have been listening to his later albums. They couldn’t have been listening to Tea for the Tillerman or Teaser and the Firecat.

  6. The Proprietor Avatar
    The Proprietor

    Enough with the serious comments, folks. Play the game:

    Homeland security must be run by a Hard Headed Woman. Cat was On the Road to Find Out but instead found himself Miles from Nowhere or at least miles from where he wanted to be. If he misses the Peace Train, he can take one of the Longer Boats instead. His friend Lisa was left waiting at Dulles airport. She is now, uh, Sad Lisa and he is Bitterblue.

    Tag, you’re it!

  7. Matthew Cromer Avatar
    Matthew Cromer

    Any douchebag who gives money to Hamas should be ejected from the country, at a minimum.

  8. Sheldon Czapnik Avatar
    Sheldon Czapnik

    Jeff, do you have the slightest clue who Cat Stevens now is, and what he’s all about? For example, when the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was issued, I PERSONALLY heard Stevens say on television that he hoped he would have the chance to carry out the fatwa and kill Rushdie himself. The guy’s a fanatic, and I’m glad we’ve booted him.

  9. Tony Alva Avatar
    Tony Alva

    For the record, I am a huge Cat Steven’s fan so this is a major story for Tony Alva. As a matter of fact I just gave some friends of mine a copy of “Monabone Jakon”, which I believe is his best record just in front of “Tea For The Tillerman”. My mother’s love for his records ensured that it was the background music of my early childhood. As a musician, I play quite a few Cat songs in my repertoire. What makes his early stuff so great is his desperation to find faith and spirituality. He was obviously a lost soul in the sixties looking for a place to plant roots. I think his songs were appealing because most people go through the same crisis of spirituality at some point in their lives, some more than once, and to different degrees. I can certainly relate on many levels.
    I think it was this vulnerability that made Islam an easy fit for him. Why not? Nothing else was working for him right? Being a considerable star in the sixties and seventies he no doubt became one who knows only excess in everything and the excessive bent of Islam was where he suited up.
    The only intel I

  10. jeff jarvis Avatar
    jeff jarvis

    sheldon… of course I do… good riddance… but he is so pathetic he is also comical…..

  11. jeff jarvis Avatar
    jeff jarvis

    sheldon… of course I do… good riddance… but he is so pathetic he is also comical…..

  12. BB Avatar
    BB

    FOREIGNERS!! BOOGA-BOOGA! GIVE US MORE POWER!

  13. Safran Avatar
    Safran

    My slug for the story this morning? Cat Fight.
    No, there’s nothing funny about terrorism or people who support terrorists. But Cat Stevens? Will we be nabbing all our ’70s lite-rock folk singers? Has anyone notified Harry Chapin?

  14. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    It’s a wonderful country we live in when (according to some commenters’ logic) anyone called a “fanatic” is refused entry. If someone financially supports terrorists – perhaps I can see the logic in restricting their access (of course, there’s a difference between a $10 donation and “financial support”). But just because someone supports a fatwa (if even you “PERSONALLY” see it on TV) doesn’t mean that person should not be allowed into “the land of the free.”

  15. petetheelder Avatar
    petetheelder

    Michael plesase explain what the difference between a $10 donation and financial support. I thought by definition a $10 donation is financial support. I guess you are ok with people making death threats as well since Yusuf Islam has a history of making them against Salman Rushdie who committed the horrible offense of writing a book.
    In America you should be able to believe whatever you want to, but when those beliefs cross over into criminal action (such as financial support for terrorist groups that have murdered americans and making death threats) you should no longer be welcomed here.

  16. Don Mynack Avatar
    Don Mynack

    Completely and utterly wrong, Michael. If someone openly and brazenly supports a fatwa of death to an infidel, supporting it so much as to call a press conference to express support for said fatwa, and to idiotically say at said press conference that they would like to personally carry out said fatwa of death to someone, then that person is guilty of making terroristic threats, which is a violation of U.S. law. That idiot should not be allowed in this country, except to serve time in one of our joyous and wonderful prisons.
    His music blows too.

  17. Andy Freeman Avatar
    Andy Freeman

    > Has anyone notified Harry Chapin?
    Probably not. He died in 1981.

  18. Trent Avatar
    Trent

    Cat Stevens created some great music in his time. He helped make “Harold and Maude” such a moving film.
    But as has been the case with Wagner, it’s hard to reconcile great art with the views of its creator.

  19. Safran Avatar
    Safran

    Andy: I know. Kidding.

  20. Guy Avatar
    Guy

    Micheal, instead of $10, try “tens of thousands of dollars” for Hamas. Here’s something from 2000 about him getting refused entry into Israel because of it: Israel Rejects the Former Cat Stevens

  21. Matthew Goggins Avatar
    Matthew Goggins

    I agree wholeheartedly with Jeff: good riddance to Yusuf Islam.
    He publicly called for the death of Salman Rushdie, and he donated lots of money to Hamas. If I had been on the plane, I would have readily voted to boot him off in Maine, despite the six-hour delay it caused.
    One can hope that people like Islam are just misguided dopes who won’t commit any real mischief on a brief trip to the United States. But we’re better off just not letting him in.

  22. Crid Avatar
    Crid

    > But as has been the case with Wagner, it’s
    > hard to reconcile great art with the views of
    > its creator
    Trent, seriously. Great Art? The shallowness of insight that made his youthful screeching so insipid now makes his grown-up politics loathsome.

  23. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Only great art Cat Stevens is capable of is terrorism. He is one of the slime. He has connections to some of the most notorious radical Islamic figures in the world, including Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad.
    When the Islamic death sentence against Salman Rushdie was pronounced, Cat Stevens told Muslim students at London

  24. Reid Avatar
    Reid

    Yes, Kat, that was the quote I remembered. Newsweek ran it on their quotes page with the attribution to “Cat ‘Peace Train’ Stevens.”

  25. pele Avatar
    pele

    The whole world is laughing at you America.
    Unfortunatly the joke isn’t funny.

  26. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Stevens was allowed in the country in May. What has changed between now and then?

  27. Ruth Avatar
    Ruth

    Has anyone got a link to his web site?
    From CNN:
    Islam recently condemned the school seizure by militants in Beslan, Russia, that left more than 300 dead, nearly half of them children. In a statement on his Web site, he wrote, “Crimes against innocent bystanders taken hostage in any circumstance have no foundation whatsoever in the life of Islam and the model example of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.”

  28. pele Avatar
    pele

    He’s a good man. I just can’t understand this.